50,000 Watts of Hate: Rant of the Day

Statesmanship — remember that quaint notion from civics class about love of country trumping partisanship and short-term political gain?

In a few weeks, the conservative Claremont Institute, where former Colorado Senate President John Andrews is a senior fellow, celebrates the spirit of the quintessential statesman through its annual Winston Churchill Award — even if this year’s recipient is a bit of a definition-bender.

Yet, current Colorado Board of Education member and U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer (R-Fort Collins) — Andrew’s ideological twin — demonstrates he’s begging for some serious schooling in the art of statesmanship after an August 28 appearance on KFKA’s Amy Oliver Show.In today’s entry for the most profane, intellectually-stunted, and ludicrous statement made on Colorado talk radio, ex-Congressman Schaffer has an embarrassing “my dog ate my homework” moment as he fumbles through some bizarre revisionist history on the Iraq War:

OLIVER: I’m going to continue my conversation with former Colorado congressman, serving the Fourth congressional district, Bob Schaffer. He currently sits on the [Colorado] State Board [of Education], representing that same district, and of course, he is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge what will look, what looks like it will be Mark Udall for the U.S. Senate. I think it’ll be a competitive race. Bob, let me, let me go through a series of issues and just get your stance on them. War on Terror and Iraq.

[…]

OLIVER: Unfortunately, you’ve got a, you’ve got a Senate, you’ve got a Senate president who seems to think he is Commander in Chief.

SCHAFFER: Well you do, and that’s unfortunate.

OLIVER: Yeah, yeah, I mean —

SCHAFFER: And for me, you know, I definitely have opinions about what ought to be occurring in Iraq and I, and I learn more every day. I’m not hard and fast in what I know, ’cause I don’t know everything about it. I benefit a lot from talking with our, with soldiers in Colorado who’ve come back from theater, and they have — and they have an awful lot to say, and once you can get them out of their uniform and away from their immediate commanding officer, sometimes they’re, they’re quite helpful with their particular viewpoints and insights about what ought to be occurring there, and I really enjoy meeting and visiting and learning from people just like that and, so I’m going to take my time doing it. But the point being is that this is difficult in the context of a senatorial race because I, I think the Senate has an awful lot to say and ought to be exercising its authority as the Constitution places it in the Congress, but at the same time, for the sake of political advantage I think it’s foolish to behave the way you see people like Harry Reid and other, others who are leading the Senate right now, that I think are trying to, at the end, the analysis of their achievement and what they are effectively accomplishing is a deliberate loss and a surrender in Iraq for the sake of their political advantage at election time in 2008. I think they’re hoping America loses.

OLIVER: Oh, see, and I just — that just makes my blood boil.

Sorry, Bob. Accusing the Senate Majority Leader of treason isn’t just factually incorrect, it’s unstatesmanlike and not befitting a U.S. Senate candidate.

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